THE MILLENIUM (REV 20.4–6) ASHEAVEN

Abstract

Taking the ‘first resurrection’ (Rev 20.4–6) as ‘heaven’ accords with early Christian, non-chiliast views of martyrs and other blessed. Exegetical development of this interpretation requires plotting (in line with the literary structure of Rev 4–22) the convergence of complementary eschatologies: first, the millennium brings to a climax a series of images expressing ‘vertical’ eschatology (the life of God's witnesses after death); second, the whole narrative focuses fulfilment of the Creator's scroll (‘what must take place [γενε´σθαι] hereafter’) on the very end of the end-time (i.e. ‘horizontally’, on the moment marked by the enthroned's voice in 16.17, γη´γoνην, and 21.6, γη´oναν: ‘It/They has/have taken place’), and on God's victory over those gathered by powers of deception for ‘the war’ at Armageddon (16.12–16; 19.19–21; 20.7–10). Christ's kingdom in heaven is followed by the advent of God's sacred kingdom on earth.